Social Media as Civic Space for Political Literacy among Older Adult Citizens in Port Harcourt, Nigeria (Published)
While ubiquitous in everyday use, in reality social media usage by the older adult is not very common and in particular in the teaching of civic duties and electioneering campaign. The purpose of this study was to find out what social media platform older adults commonly use to acquire political literacy in urban indigenous communities in Nigeria; what political literacies do older adults acquire through the various social media. The study was conducted during the 2019 general election in Nigeria using the questionnaire survey. The study shows that facebook and WhatsApp are the most used social media for political literacy during electioneering period; that greater number of older adults uses the social media to know party symbols; names of political parties, read party manifestos, that social media provides the civic space for older adults to acquire, update and retool their skills for the performance of their civic duties and obligation as senior citizens and that intercultural and interreligious dialogue is not mostly accessed by the older adults as part of their political literacy education. It was concluded that literate older adults are virtually visible in the social media and that in respect of gender gap, that men are more visible in social media in accessing and acquiring political literacy through the social media than women.
Keywords: Learning, Older Adults, Social media, political literacy